Phillis Wheatley's "On Being Brought from Africa to America" Read by Cornelius Eady
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- Опубликовано: 8 фев 2025
- Read "On Being Brought from Africa to America" by Phillis Wheatley www.poetryfound...
About the Reader
Poet, Playwright and Songwriter Cornelius Eady was born in Rochester, NY in 1954, and is the author of several poetry collections: Kartunes; Victims of the Latest Dance Craze, winner of the 1985 Lamont Prize; The Gathering of My Name, nominated for the 1992 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry; You Don't Miss Your Water; The Autobiography of a Jukebox; Brutal Imagination; and most recently, Hardheaded Weather (Putnam, 2008). His awards include Fellowships from the NEA, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Traveling Scholarship, and The Prairie Schooner Strousse Award. His work appears in many journals, magazines, and the anthologies Every Shut Eye Ain't Asleep, In Search of Color Everywhere, and The Vintage Anthology of African American Poetry, (1750-2000). In 2013 he released two poetry/music chapbooks, BOOK OF HOOKS, VOL 1 & 2 (Kattywompus Press), and ASKING FOR THE MOON (Red Glass Press). He is a co-founder of the Cave Canem Foundation and is currently The Miller Family Endowed Chair in Literature and Writing and Professor in English and Theater at The University of Missouri-Columbia.
Website: www.corneliusea...
Twitter: @roughband
About the Favorite Poem Project
At the 2015 Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference this year, our team at tatestreet.org were excited to kick off a new collaboration between Tate Street, Robert Pinsky, and the Favorite Poem Project (favoritepoem.org). The FPP was created by Robert Pinsky during his time as Poet Laureate (1997-2000) of the United States to celebrate and document the role of poetry in the lives of Americans. Tate Street filmed a new and more informal branch of the FPP’s online collection of short video documentaries. These videos showcase individuals reading and speaking personally about their favorite poems.
Robert Pinsky, the Favorite Poem Project and Tate Street selected a diverse group of readers from the writing conference-composed of editors, translators, educators, fiction writers, and poets-to participate at AWP 2015.
For more videos:
www.favoritepoem.org
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much appreciation for THIS teaching, caring and delivery. thank you. Phyllis Montana -LeBlanc. New Orleans, La
Intresting Poem I thank yo, u for the Educations on Phyllis Wheatley thank you, and have a Bless Day AMEN
She is speaking in what I like to call "black code language" nevermind those laws I mean in a way she sending a message to all blacks, saying we are all in this together. You had to be black to truely understand and relate to what she is saying in this poem, she's using a code that would make it impossible for whites to decipher that dual social consciousness that she shares with other blacks. She s saying to the slaveholders that we as blacks know you view us this way but that's what Make you not truely Christian. And to top it all off she saying that Jesus was black. That's how I interpreted that. Great poem.
+Jahri D she did say "black as Cain" :)
Unfortunately I have to disagree. Back then, most black slaves wouldn't know how to read or write, and their masters certainly wouldn't have read her poetry to them. I believe she was actually addressing white people (specifically slave owners), but she was extremely diplomatic about it. She cleverly walks on eggshells, as many women in history had to do or their voices would've been silenced. There's a certain gratitude in her poem, "twas _mercy_ brought me from my pagan land", but she also uses that gratitude to point out that her Christian kidnappers aren't acting like Christians at all. This poem is merely pointing out hypocrisy, and very lightly suggesting, "Look. I'm black like Cain (Cain was believed to be black-skinned, which was synonymous with evil back then), but I'm a saved Christian. Doesn't that mean all blacks are capable of becoming good Christians? Maybe, just maybe, we deserve to be treated equal."
She was brought from The Gambia, West Africa
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You don't have to be black to understand it. Any marginalized community/ individual can sympathize or identify with what she's saying. Especially those who find themselves on the opposite side of those who called themselves Christians.
Thank you for this analysis! Very well elaborated and really emphasized greatly on the tone.
Black people always poise and sassy even when under hard times ❤️
Fuck man, that's powerful.
Double Consciousness…..yes thank you
watching this in class rn lmao
Sounds to me like the point is she needed a Savior and found it in Jesus. She is grateful for that. She does remind white folks that she and other blacks can be brought into the Kingdom of God through Jesus and true Christians understood that. The religious, so called Christians, never understood that. It was the Bible believing white Christians who fought tirelessly for the freedom of slaves. My ancestors moved lock, stock and barrel to Kansas in the 1850's to make Kansas a free state. They moved because their church, Methodist Episcopal Church, encouraged their members to move and sway the vote in Kansas. They participated in the underground railroad in NE Kansas and fought in the Civil War in the 8th Kansas Volunteer Infantry (3 men. One killed at Chickamauga). Years later, my great great grandfather's GAR group had a black man as a member and he served as their chaplain. A lot of white people gave much of themselves for the freedom of slaves. Their faith in Christ and belief in the Bible, like many of my ancestors, compelled them to love others even if it meant giving up their own pursuit of happiness or their very life.
I looked at this poem through conscious Pan Africanist eyes. At first I thought she was being sarcastic. Surely she does not see her homeland as Paganistic or does she? She almost sounds grateful to white folks for slavery. Maybe Im clearly misunderstanding.
I think she's kind of mimicking what people claimed about her homeland, she doesn't actually believe it is Paganistic, but that's what white people think of it.
@@8pija22 Or maybe she really believed she was a sinner in need of a Savior in Jesus and found true freedom and blessing in him.
I don't really see the double consciousness or the "coded language" in this. I think we are overthinking this. I believe she is expressing her gratitude for finding God. Similar to when you try to focus on the positives in a negative situation. She then uses the second part of the poem to encourage her fellow countrymen simultaneously using Christianity to prove to slave owners that although black people are viewed in a negative light, we will all be one once it's all said and done. Just my two cents. I'm nowhere near as talented or educated as the brother in the video however I feel like he is stretching her words just a tad bit too much.
Anyone here from a Benchmark
Her first book was published in Aldgate, England. At 12 she was reading Greek and Latin, so clearly she was very intelligent and had a fabulous education from the family that took her in. Clearly, the Christian family loved her to do so much to get her work published and exalt her so much. Yes, she's thankful, it sounds like she was thankful that she was saved from African "female genital mutilation". I was listening to a report the other day where there is 2,500 cases of FGM in London due to immigration. So it makes you wonder how many cases there are of it throughout Europe.
The family did not take her in; Phillis was enslaved. No one would be thankful to be a slave. Do you really think she could be forth coming about her reality of being a slave in the 1700's? Africans could not talk openly against slavery. Slave masters loved to have their ego stroked. Therefore, she had to write favoring her slave master and his people. "Female Mutilation" is a cultural practice. I do not agree with it but it's apart of some African cultures, something you know nothing about.
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@@luvingg her family did help her get her work published every slave was treated different when her work got published it was around the time slavery were close to being free❤️
@@godsgirl7201 Sadly, you don’t know anything about slavery and history in America. There are no positives to be a slave. Not having rights or authority over yourself and body is not a plus. Again, the family did not take her in. They bought her. They owned her and we will never know what she went through being enslaved by those people.
@@godsgirl7201 After slavery was legally over, laws were in place to continue enslavement: Jim Crow, jail/prison, discrimination etc. Today, many is not free and Black people are still being hung.